


The Don Giovanni Files

by libertyelyot



Category: Don Giovanni - Mozart/Da Ponte
Genre: F/M, If you can have spoilers for opera, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-04
Updated: 2017-10-08
Packaged: 2019-01-09 00:56:34
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,135
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12265629
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/libertyelyot/pseuds/libertyelyot
Summary: The Corregidor of Seville is frankly suspicious. A nobleman doesn't just disappear without trace and as for his servant's cock and bull story about statues coming back to life and the Don being dragged into the flames of hell...well, really? No, somebody knows the real answer to this mystery, and the Corregidor has heard that, when it comes to Don Giovanni, la femme must always be cherchezed.Or: the women of Don Giovanni describe their relationships with him in their own words.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Nothing to see here, just me working through my latest obsession.
> 
> Starting off with Donna Anna - what really happened in her room that night? Nobody knows except her and the Don, and we can't exactly ask them. I tend to believe that she is telling the truth (even if the bit about thinking he was Don Ottavio is decidedly fishy) but this alternative version might also work...who knows?

Yes, I am guilty, but I did not kill the Don.

It is my father’s death for which I must bow my head in shame and beg forgiveness from the heavens. That my wronged father should now, in the hereafter, know the truth of it is the greatest cross I bear.

But of the Don’s death I am innocent.

How can I prove this, when it is known that I sought vengeance against the unhappy man, in company with my betrothed, Don Ottavio? Vengeance came from another quarter before we could wreak it.

It was told to me by a witness that my own father was its instrument. How this can be I do not know, but if it is so, then my most esteemed and beloved parent must know the full truth of the matter. Oh, how I tremble to think of it.

But if he knows it, then I can no longer shield myself from the full infamy of the truth. If it shall make me notorious, then so be it. If it means that my betrothed recoils from me and I am left to grieve, alone, at my father’s tomb until a merciful God takes me to his bosom, then that must be my fate. It is no more than I deserve.

Upon that accursed evening, I had been in attendance at a masked ball. This is an entertainment in which I seldom indulge, for I am no frivolous creature and I do not seek a husband, being long engaged to Don Ottavio. But on this night, my desire to honour the hostess lured me from my prayers, and I accepted her gracious invitation.

O, how the vulgarity of it offended my senses at first. The excess of colour, of noise, of perfume kept me in the remotest anteroom, at Don Ottavio’s side while the roar from the ballroom made me long to seek out a chapel.

But Don Ottavio was engaged in lengthy conversation by an associate, and I, feeling the compulsion of hunger, determined to assuage it.

I walked alone through room after room, attempting with each step to avert my eyes from the evidence of debauchery to be seen in certain corners. It was not always possible to succeed in this. Ribald laughter, the flash of teeth on a chicken thigh, a white stockinged leg half out of its petticoat, lips touching lips. And all the time the heady music, the perfume, growing stronger, confounding my senses.

Before I could find the feast, a masked gentleman stepped out from an alcove and obstructed my path.

“You are lost, signorina?” he asked, making a gallant bow.

“Not in the least,” I began to say, but he had already taken my fingertips in his, kissed them and began to lead me towards I knew not what. “Sir, I have no need of your help.”

“You are pale,” he said. “You need the sweet night air to return the rose to that damask cheek.”

“Indeed I do not,” I retorted and, extricating myself, I fled onwards, finding myself at length in the ballroom.

He pursued me there, and insinuated himself at my side, drawing me into the dancing crowd so that I could not elude him without creating an alarum around us. I was forced to dance, an exercise in which I rarely participate. To begin with I was stiff, unfamiliar with the steps, but the gentleman led well and the music possessed me until my feet learned how they should move.

Alas, well I remember the unholy joy that arose within my breast as my skirts swirled about me and my body gave itself to the dance. And well I remember too the coal-dark eyes of the cavalier upon me as I span and skipped. Although he spoke no word, he gave me to understand a wealth of unspeakable things.

The music lulled and he addressed me.

“What is it that you fear?” he said.

His words awoke me to the pit of temptation that had opened at my feet. I knew that I must step back or be lost.

“Sir, I must…”

Don Ottavio appeared at my side.

“My love,” he said, slightly out of breath. “Dancing! I had not thought you would wish to – but why did you not ask me to partner you?”

As in a dream, and unable somehow to remove my gaze from the cavalier, I replied, “You were engaged elsewhere.”

“Indeed, and whom do you think I ran into but old Don Ernesto from the shipping company I have long wished to make alliance with. He thinks he can put in a word for me with…oh!”

Another man, unfamiliar to me, had taken him by the elbow and was telling him his presence was urgently required in the orangery. This man I now know to be the Don’s servant, Leporello. Don Ottavio was whisked from my side and I was left alone again – alone in the midst of the crowd – with the masked cavalier.

He laughed, put his head to one side.

“I think I understand your fear now,” he said.

“I do not know what you mean.”

He closed his fingers around my wrist, drawing me through the crowd towards the great French windows that gave on to the patio. I thought of resisting him, but he possessed a strength – both of body and of purpose – that gave me pause.

“That man is your betrothed,” he said, looking out with me to the night sky and the stars.

“He is a good man,” I insisted, but his words had sown a seed of discomfort within me.

“He is not the man for you, and you know it.”

“Sir, you are insolent.”

“I do not deny it. But I am also free, while you are bound in toils of melancholy indifference.”

“I am…indeed, I am not…” A feeling of seasickness overcame me, so that I had to lay my hand upon the stone balustrade for balance.

The cavalier stepped closer. Against my shoulder, his silken sleeve. At my ear, his breath.

“And yet, in your presence, I feel my freedom slip away,” he murmured. “Never was man contained in so gentle a prison.”

“Oh, do not…you play with me…I should have stayed at home, at my prie-dieu.”

“What is virtue, if it be never tested?” he said. “You cannot renounce the devil unless you let him first into your heart.”

“You speak evil,” I cried, looking him in the eye. But I could not look for too long, for his gaze brought the crimson proof of shame to my cheek. “Evil, sir. I bid you goodnight.”

*

In my chamber, having dismissed my maid, I found myself unable to rise or look away from my mirror. It is vanity, I know, to look too deep into one’s own face, but I felt compelled to try and see myself as the cavalier had seen me. What secrets lay in my visage, enabling him to draw his ignoble conclusions?

There was a flush to my skin, a brilliancy to my eye, that altered me. I was young again, the young girl who had never been given to Ottavio, who still hoped for the bubble the wicked world calls love.

What I had seen in those eyes…would I ever see it again?

A rattling at my casement jolted me from reverie.

“Ottavio?” I knew it was not.

“Donna Anna.”

The voice of the cavalier.

“Oh, how do you know my name…?”

I pulled wide the window. The cavalier, still masked, swung his long booted legs over the sill and caught up my hands. Before sense or reason could intervene, I was in his arms, with his lips at my forehead.

“I had to follow you,” he said. “I am intoxicated and my thirst for you is the only force that can drive me.”

“No,” I whispered, but I could not even convince myself, and before the word was fully formed, he had kissed it from my lips.

My vaunted virtue slipped from me along with my robe, discarded on the floor as he led me in a dervish dance to my bed. On my back, entwined with him, I knew how Eve had fallen, how wrong I had been to despise those who succumbed to temptation. Temptation was very much stronger than I had ever realised.

The madness that consumed me was broken only when, at the very precipice of my ruin, my maid entered the room in search of linens for the laundry.

Brought back to my senses, I screamed fit to shatter the casement glass.

“Oh, save me, save me, he will defile me!”

She screamed in her turn. “Oh Madam, I will fetch the guard, oh…you villain!”

He leapt to his feet.

“Lie to yourself and everyone else, but your God knows the truth of what you are,” he hissed, and the look in his eye was now malevolent.

As he fled, I followed him, wishing maledictions and punishments upon him, not for what he had done, but for what he had seen of me. What he had made of me.

But it was not the cavalier who was punished, but my poor father. Ah, me. And now I am well served for my sins. In one heated moment, I have brought calamity upon my house.

Let this stand as a warning to all those unhappy women betrayed by their own flesh. For what he did, I wanted to see him in pain. That I cannot deny.

But I did not kill the Don.

 


	2. Donna Elvira

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Several sources refer to Donna Elvira having been a nun, seduced away from the convent by Don G, but Da Ponte doesn't (in the epilogue she states that she will 'enter' a convent, rather than 'return' to one), so I've taken a different tack here.

Yes, I am guilty, but I did not kill the Don.

The sin I committed was the unpardonable one, of loving him.

How my younger self would scorn me, to see me in such thrall. Oh, sir, I was the proudest beauty for miles around, and the hardest won.

I spurned a steady stream of gallants, men of all stations and characters. Some of them were handsome, some of them were rich, some of them were brave, yet none of them interested me for longer than the span of a gavotte.

I nodded to them, bestowed at times a condescending smile, gave only the very tips of my fingers. I listened to their protestations, be they stiff with courtliness or extravagantly mannered, then retired to mock them with my maid.

“Do you not wish to marry, my lady?” she asked me once.

“Indeed I do not,” I answered her. “For all men are deluded, and how shall I love a man who thinks me a goddess when I know myself mortal? It is weakness in them, not to see weakness in me.”

Oh, how my words haunt me now.

I saw him first on horseback from my window.

“There is a new cavalier in the town,” I told my maid. “Shall we wager? How long before he pays court to me?”

She wagered me a box of crystallised ginger, which was ever her favourite sweetmeat.

She thought three days. I, so sure of myself at that time, thought two.

Yet five days, and seven, and then ten passed without the hint of gallantry from the Don’s direction. He was often at our palacio, for my father thought him an amusing fellow and invited him to dine with us on several occasions. At these feasts, he maintained a manner towards me that was courtly but frigid. When I spoke, he regarded me with an impenetrably dark stare, so that I became roused to make my remarks ever more provocative, until my father chided me. But still Giovanni’s face was as a mask, as pale and fixed in its expression as anything that came out of the Venetian workshops.

That which began as an irritation became soon a frustration and then, by more rapid degree, a fascination. The face that had failed at first to move me, now enchanted me so that it imprinted itself in my imaginings. I lay awake at night, seeing his eyes burn through the canopy of my bed, dreaming his touch upon my skin.

“It has not pleased you to take a wife,” I said, driven finally to recklessness as we listened to a concerto played on the darkening lawn. “Why so?”

At last, his eye was drawn to me and the stiff line of his lip was broken. A mere quiver, but my heart took it as a sign.

“No wife that I might take has pleased me,” he said, softly, the music protecting his words from other ears than mine. “And so my search must continue.”

“What is it that you seek? For there are many who possess beauty, nobility, gentleness and virtue in these lands.”

“These are not the qualities that delight me most,” he said, his sidelong gaze now fixed and intent.

My heart skipped with anguished excitement.

“Then what?” I whispered.

“I cannot speak of it here. Perhaps if we could find ourselves alone after the music has finished…”

And thus, behind a hedge in the starlit garden as the clock chimed midnight, unbending Elvira unbent.

Oh, what streams of passion bubbled up from a well I had not known to exist within me!

Giovanni blew the dust from my heart and made it beat, caused the blood to surge in my veins and the very core of my being to sing to his tune. From the first stroking of his finger upon the tender inner side of my wrist, he had no rival for my attention; all was Giovanni, Giovanni, Giovanni.

For three mad days, we stole what moments we could in corners and cupboards, behind curtains and beneath tables. My maid kept watch while we drank our fill of each other. I sighed and trembled, I shed tears of intense joy, and he promised me marriage. Alas, the consummation should never come before the wedding. How bitterly I know that now.

He left me at dawn, vowing to speak to my father and ask for my hand that very morning.

But I watched for him in vain. No plumed hat swept along the carriage drive that day, or any day after. My maid discovered that he had left Burgos and was unlikely to return. And I knew that my life was over, unless I could find him.

So it was that I came here, sir, and find him I did, but I gained neither satisfaction nor revenge. I am a woman scorned, a woman insulted and ill-treated, a woman whose pride has been trodden in the dirt.

His fate is well-deserved, for what is wickeder than the theft of a soul? He stole mine, and now I have little to offer the God I strive to serve. Is it sin to ask your God to accept a soul stripped bare by love for a devil? I dare not ask myself the question, for I have nowhere else to turn.

Yet, were he to come back from the hell where he burns and beckon me to follow him, I would.

I love him still, and always must, even in my convent cell.

I could not kill the Don.


	3. Zerlina

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, Zerlina. Always presumed to be less complicated than the Donnas - but is she?

Oh, goodness me, no, I did not kill the Don! Why on earth would you think that?

Yes, I know he treated me like a plaything, but I wouldn’t kill a man for trying it on with me. Half the village would be dead, sir, if I did.

What he did to Masetto was nasty, but then, Masetto really _was_ out to kill him, so I can’t say as I blame him that much. No, Masetto didn’t kill him. He was with me. We were looking for him, I’ll give you that, but we never did get our hands on him. Just to teach him a lesson, you know? And it wasn’t just us either, it was the rich people who came to the party in those masks as well.

He rubbed a lot of people up the wrong way, it seems.

Did he rub me up the… oh, what a question. Cheeky!

He did…well, I mean, there was a bit of… You must know what he was like. A proper charmer, said he’d marry me. Well, I didn’t believe it. Not really. Maybe for a second or two.

I suppose I might have _wanted_ to believe it. So for a minute or two I might have let myself…give in…

I mean, he was nice. I thought he was nice. He smelled lovely, oh God, he really did. Mmm.

Have to admit, it was lucky Donna Elvira turned up when she did, or I’m not sure… I might not be here talking to you now.

But he wouldn’t let it go, you know?

He knew I’d gone back to Masetto, and he knew I wasn’t going to leave him but it was like he just didn’t care. At that party, I could’ve cut off my head and replaced it with a pumpkin and he’d still have chased after me. Like, because he’d made up his mind he was going to have me, nothing was going to stop him. It was scary.

I don’t think he expected me to put up a fight, or scream so loud. I’ve always had a good pair of lungs on me. Masetto says if the cockerels all die overnight, I could do the job for them.

Anyway, I’m sorry he’s dead. I don’t think anyone should die at that age. I think it’s a shame. Yes, he deserved _something_ but not that. I don’t really think Masetto would’ve killed him either. Roughed him up a bit and then let him leave town. I hope so anyway. Don’t much like the idea of being married to a murderer.

Of course I love Masetto. He’s my man, isn’t he?

Do I feel guilty? No. Would you?

I don’t think it’s wrong to want something more in life. I mean, we’re happy. But there’s happy on your knees at the tub with your hands red raw from scrubbing dirty linen but knowing there’s food in the pot and a warm man in your bed later, and there’s that other kind of happy, the dream kind.

I had a minute, just a minute, of being close to the dream kind. Close to featherbeds and little pointy shoes with diamond buckles and a man who doesn’t stink of pig swill when he comes in of an evening. I don’t regret it, and I won’t feel guilty about it.

He was a horrible man, but I do sometimes wonder, what if he hadn’t been? And had really meant what he said to me?

Still, no point wondering, is there? It won’t feed the chickens.

I hope you find whoever it was killed him.

But it definitely wasn’t me.


End file.
